'I do bad taste with intelligence'Over an anarchic lunch, Mel Brooks wisecracks about everything from the
new-found success of The Producers to his wartime high jinks. But the recent death of his wife, Anne Bancroft, has left him bereft. Interview by Rachel Cooke for The Observer.

To slip briefly into luvvie parlance, Mel Brooks is what is known as a trouper. This means he always gets on with the job, come sleet or snow, a goonish smile slathered across his face (even if, in some lights, the smile does look more like a grimace).

It's called a "moviecal", I'm told – a movie musical that becomes a hit stage show that then becomes a movie again. ...This film version, by all accounts, adheres very closely to what theatre audiences see. Certainly many key personnel remain: among those reprising their stage roles are Lane, Broderick, Gary Beach and Roger Bart...

The Producers: Musical a better play than movieby JACK ZINK for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The camera sees all of that, but the perspective has changed. Roughly the same plot rollout on screen involves a long, slow and soft-centered warm-up. It's telling that the most comical and invigorating moments early in the film come through Jon Lovitz and especially Will Ferrell, who are newcomers to the project for the screen edition.

New spring in the old goosestepby GLENN WHIPP for the Sydney Morning Herald

The movie was Brooks's first (and, to many, his funniest), but it was almost left for dead when test audiences didn't take to the ribald humour and Nazi spoofing. Then Peter Sellers saw the film by accident - he was at a private screening and the scheduled movie never arrived. He took out an ad in Variety, applauding the film and calling for its immediate release. A few months later, it arrived in theatres - and Sellers wasn't the only one applauding.

Book now for a euphoric trip to showbiz heavenby CHARLES SPENCER for the Daily Telegraph

But the show isn't just funny; it's warm-hearted, too. This is Brooks's love letter to Broadway. And one of the reasons, I suspect, that neither of the film versions really works is that The Producers requires that crucial conspiracy of pleasure between live performers and their audience. Within moments of the show starting, we all seem to be surfing a communal wave of exhilaration.

The Producers, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Londonby SARAH HEMMING for the Financial Times

So how is it looking? Pretty good. It is over- amplified – more subtlety in volume would be attractive. And the weaknesses in the show have to do with Brooks’ songs, which, apart from “Springtime for Hitler”, are not as sharp as the conceit demands. But generally the production values are still polished, Susan Stroman’s dance routines are vivacious, the comic timing is tight.

The final curtainby LYNN GARDNER for the Guardianpublished: January 9, 2007

Last Saturday saw the 920th and final performance of The Producers in London's West End. We know all about first nights at the theatre, because they naturally get all the attention - the all-important early reviews, the news of the breakthrough performance, the will-it-won't-it-float moment - but what are last nights like? If a production has been a failure, cast and crew can't wait to be shot of it and get on to the next project. But, for a show such as The Producers, a critical and commercial hit, and one where a substantial number of the team have been on board for the duration of its two-year run, the final performance is a milestone.

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